157.2 A SMALL STUDY OF NORTH-HOLLAND PRICE INCREASES, Joe Kraus
157.3 NEWJOUR, Ann Okerson
Press release from EBSCO Subscription Services (Laura Ralstin, 205 991-1492)
Birmingham, Ala. U.S.A. -- Publishers have indicated to EBSCO that base price* increases will be slightly lower for 1997 subscriptions than they were for 1996 subscriptions. Based on information received from publishers during the first quarter of this year and on historical price increase data, EBSCO is now projecting a base increase of 9 to 11 percent for 1997 subscriptions.
Projecting increases is difficult at this time of year as many yet-undetermined factors will affect journal prices, including: page increases, volume expansion, subscription cancellations, basic inflation, postal rates and currency exchange rates in effect at the time prices are set or publishers are paid for 1997 subscriptions. EBSCO continually communicates with major publishers regarding projected price increases, and updated projections will be provided later in the year.
Postal Rate Increases
One factor that will have a key effect on journal prices this year is an increase in postal rates for most major countries throughout the world. Rates for most countries are scheduled to increase in January 1997, due to a resolution passed in 1994 by the Universal Postal Union (an agency of the United Nations that establishes practices for transnational mailings and the rate at which countries are reimbursed for handling these mailings). The amount of the increase has not yet been set and will vary among countries. Therefore, it is difficult for publishers to know how much of their costs will be attributable to postage and difficult for vendors and publishers to project total subscription price increases.
Projections by Subscriber Billing Currency
Projected increases for libraries and organizations invoiced in various currencies are listed in the box below. For U.S. journals, projections are based on the estimated base price increase of 9 to 11 percent and the current, relative value of the customer billing currency compared to the U.S. dollar.
For European journals, projections are based on the estimated base price increase of 9 to 11 percent and the current, relative value of the customer billing currency compared to that of the local currencies of major European publishing centers.** Ranges shown are for European journals published outside the corresponding country for each billing currency (e.g., the projected increase for customers invoiced in British pounds does not apply to U.K. journals).
Conservative Budgeting
As always, EBSCO recommends all customers add 2 to 5 percent to the estimated price increases for non-domestic journals to protect their budgets from a weakening of the currency in which they are invoiced between now and when subscription rates are set or publishers are paid.
PROJECTED PRICE INCREASES BY CUSTOMER BILLING CURRENCY
Customer Projected Projected
Billing Increase for Increase for
Currency U.S. Journals European Journals
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Australian dollar 9.0 - 11.0% 7.0 - 9.0%
British pound 9.0 - 11.0% 8.0 - 10.0%
Canadian dollar 11.0 - 13.0% 9.5 - 11.5%
Dutch guilder 11.0 - 13.0% 10.0 - 12.0%
French franc 11.0 - 13.0% 10.0 - 12.0%
German mark 11.0 - 13.0% 9.5 - 11.5%
Italian lira 10.0 - 12.0% 10.0 - 12.0%
Japanese yen 12.0 - 14.0% 10.0 - 12.0%
New Zealand dollar 7.0 - 9.0% 6.0 - 8.0%
South African rand 12.0 - 14.0% 10.5 - 12.5%
Spanish peseta 10.0 - 12.0% 10.0 - 12.0%
U.S. dollar 9.0 - 11.0% 9.0 - 11.0%
*The base price increase is the change in the cost of a journal
purchased within its country of origin with the official
currency of that country. When subscribers from other countries
buy the journal, the base price increase will either be offset
or compounded by the exchange rate between the subscriber's and
the publisher's currencies.**Mid-February exchange rates were used for these projections.
157.2 A SMALL STUDY OF NORTH-HOLLAND PRICE INCREASES
Joe Kraus, George Mason University, jkraus3@osf1.gmu.edu.
As the engineering librarian at George Mason University, I take care of the budget for about 246 journals. For the most part, we subscribe to journals in computer science, information science, statistics, operations research, electrical engineering, systems engineering, and related engineering subjects.
I had recently received a list of "Supplemental Periodical Charges and Credits" from my serials/acquisitions librarian. I was shocked to find that some of the journals had increased in price by $300-600 within the last year. Because of the way the list was made, I did not know the name of the publishers that increased their prices. So, I checked the names of the publishers that increased their prices by $95 or more. Of the 246 journals, 51 had increases of more than $95. Taking a look at these 51 journals, the most by far were from the North-Holland Publishing Co. with 15 journals. Further back in the pack were Kluwer, Pergamon, and Wiley with 7, 6, and 6 journals respectively.
This led me to some more investigating to determine the percentage of increase for all of the North-Holland journals in our engineering disciplines, not just the ones that rose by more than $95. I was able to find a total of 18 N-H journals that my departments subscribe to. For these 18 North-Holland journals, they rose an average of 28.2% in price in one year, quite a hefty increase. The largest increase was for "Statistics and Probability Letters" with an increase of 53%, while the least increase was for the "Computer Graphics Forum" at 14%.
I do understand that North-Holland Publishing is a for-profit company, and that they have a respected reputation for publishing excellent research. However, I do have reservations for a company that raises prices significantly greater than the industry average in the technical fields. (Last I remember, it was about 15-20%.) I would like to add that this is the first year that I have conducted such a study of my journals, and I did not directly compare the percentage increase of N-H journals to other publishers' journals.
In short, I would like to say that based on my findings, I will keep a closer watch on journal usage from our students and faculty. This way, I can better determine the _value_ of the journals for our patrons.
Ann Okerson, Yale University, ann@cni.org.
Well, you won't be surprised to hear that I think that NOSPI is too valuable a resource to spend it on duplicating what exists elsewhere! In particular, I mean new journal announcements. Thank you for reminding people of NewJour.
What's even better about NewJour is the archived Web site which has been in existence since October 1, 1995. Its address is:
It is maintained by Jay Jacobs at the UC San Diego Libraries and his crew and was written up in the Chronicle a few weeks ago. The NewJour web archive has the following features:
o It's updated twice a day at 3 a.m. and 3 p.m., incorporating all the NewJour postings of the previous 12 hours.
o The archive is now approaching 2,000 titles of Internet journals, newsletters, and magazines from the start date of 8/93.
o Current postings average up to 10 per day.
o Many formal publishers are making their titles available via the Internet and we aim to capture these through the work of a couple of part-time grad student/cybersurfers as well as of the time of the two co-moderators (A. Okerson & J. O'Donnell). We are contacting publishers asking them to submit their announcements, as well.
o All URLs in any and all postings are automatically "hotlinked" and take the reader to the site for the journal or information about it.
o The archive is fully searchable, albeit the full text search now takes a little while.
o You may now search within letters of the alphabet, which saves time if you can narrow down this way. We are seeking other solutions.
o We are beginning to make "spider runs" from time to time to identify no longer valid URLs.
o We update information in the archive when we are notified by publishers. While we cannot continue to verify information after it is posted, we do act on messages from authors and creators and incorporate changes to URLS or scope, or any additional information sent to NewJour, even though we do not post another announcement to the list, in general.
o The current home page design was done by Paul Schaffner, a medievalist, and now a graduate student at SILS, Michigan.
The list and archive are a public service with contributions from UCSD for the archive; Penn and Yale support; and grad students who are paid both by ARL and by Penn work-study money.
I should also acknowledge our European cybersurfer, Michael Moebius, a librarian in Cologne, who monitors many sources for NewJour.
We want NewJour to be used and useful and are eager for more people to send us postings, corrections, and so on. This is a truly original, value-added effort and all of us who work in it are proud of it!
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Statements of fact and opinion appearing in the _Newsletter on Serials Pricing Issues_ are made on the responsibility of the authors alone, and do not imply the endorsement of the editor, the editorial board, or the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Readers of the NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES are encouraged to share the information in the newsletter by electronic or paper methods. We would appreciate credit if you quote from the newsletter.
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The NEWSLETTER ON SERIALS PRICING ISSUES (ISSN: 1046-3410) is published by the editor through the Office of Information Technology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as news is available. Editor: Marcia Tuttle, Internet: tuttle@gibbs.oit.unc.edu; Paper mail: Serials Department, CB #3938 Davis Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC 27514-8890; Telephone: 919 962-1067; FAX: 919 962-4450. Editorial Board: Deana Astle (Clemson University), Christian Boissonnas (Cornell University), Jerry Curtis (Springer Verlag New York), Janet Fisher (MIT Press), Fred Friend (University College, London), Charles Hamaker (Louisiana State University), Daniel Jones (University of Texas Health Science Center), Michael Markwith (Swets North America), James Mouw (University of Chicago), and Heather Steele (Blackwell's Periodicals Division). The Newsletter is available on the Internet, Blackwell's CONNECT, and Readmore's ROSS. EBSCO customers may receive the Newsletter in paper format. To subscribe to the newsletter send a message to LISTPROC@UNC.EDU saying SUBSCRIBE PRICES [YOUR NAME]. Be sure to send that message to the listserver and not to Prices. You must include your name. To unsubscribe (no name required in message), you must send the message from the e-mail address by which you are subscribed. If you have problems, please contact the editor.
Back issues of the Newsletter are archived on the UNC-Chapel Hill World Wide Web site. The url is: http://www.lib.unc.edu/prices/prices.html. Issues are also archived on the listserver. To get a list of available issues send a message to LISTPROC@UNC.EDU saying INDEX PRICES. To retrieve a specific issue, the message should read: GET PRICES PRICES.xx (where "xx" is the number of the issue).
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